The Diary of an Emoji

This is a fictional diary of Emoji (facts presented here are real), the first digital language in the world. Emoji has named this diary as 'Smiley' inspired by 'Dear Kitty' in Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, which enables us to glimpse into Nazi Germany during World War II through the eyes of a young girl who lived during there during that time.?

Diary Entry#1: 1999- Dear Smiley, I'm thrilled about being born in this world. Thank you, Shigetaka Kurita - my creator. Shigetaka was a Japanese graphic interface designer at imode, DOCOMO. DOCOMO's motto is to find new ways to express information which made Shigetaka think of innovative ways to represent weather forecast info. That's when I came into existence.

Shigetaka gave me different forms/expressions in four different areas, namely, weather, traffic, technology and time. My childhood pictures (the original set of emojis - nearly 176 of them) are preserved at New York's Museum of Modern Art. ~Cheers, Emoji?

Diary Entry#2: 2000-2005- Dear Smiley, I'm travelling to other platforms and interfaces beyond the territories of DOCOMO and Japan. Guess what that means?! My popularity is growing. Isn't that amazing?!? ~ Cheers, Emoji?

Diary Entry#3: 2007- Dear Smiley, I think this is something big. Google's software internationalization team has submitted a petition to get recognition for me at the Unicode consortium. This is a huge and well-reputed non-profit group that is responsible for maintaining text standards across computers. The day when the whole world will get to know me is not far away!? ~ Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#4: 2009- Dear Smiley, Some more good news. Engineers from Apple, Yasuo Kida and Peter Edberg have also joined in and have submitted a proposal to the Unicode Standard to accept my 625 expressions as new emoji characters. If this is successful, I'll become a legitimate form of communication. Wow!!!? ~ Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#5: 2010 - Dear Smiley, I think this is the best year of my life. The Unicode Consortium has recognized me and my different expressions. I'm excited!? ~ Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#6: 2011 - Dear Smiley, I'm happy to share with you about the most prestigious honor I've got during my lifetime. 'Apple' has introduced an official emoji keyboard on iOS. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#7: 2013 - Dear Smiley, Adding on to the never ending list of happenings filled with happiness, success and fame, here's another one. Just like 'Apple', 'Android' has also introduced an official emoji keyboard. That is a milestone because?statista.com?says that in 2014, the Android Market share will be 81.1% whereas the Apple Market share will be only 15.6%. So I think this is a much bigger leap than the 2011 one. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#8: 2014 - Dear Smiley, Looks like the days of success and happiness have come to an abrupt end. There are problems brewing everywhere about the lack of diversity in me. People complain that I've adapted to include only certain types of food, flags of fewer countries and also only conventional family set up. Also, people are not happy that the current expressions showing different professionals are only male emojis with white skin tone. I'm being branded as a language which has all the evils, namely gender bias, racism and lack of inclusivity. These debates drenched in negativity make me very sad. ~Tears, Emoji

Diary Entry#9 : 2015 - Dear Smiley, Just like Albert Einstein once said, 'In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity', I've gone through diversity updates. Now, I can express the flags of 200+ countries and nearly 80+ food and drink items.

And, the best part is that, the great emoji politicization campaign is over. I can now show the 5 skin tones defined in the Fitzpatrick Skin tone classifier. So, the racism argument is quashed now!

Also, I've been updated to show both homosexual and heterosexual couples. The list of updates goes on to include female professionals, more gender-neutral emojis, mythical and fictitious creatures, extinct animals, etc.

Best moment of the year: Oxford dictionary?announced the face with tears emoji -??as the?word of the year!

I've a strong hunch that my best expression is yet to come. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#10: 2016 - Dear Smiley, My hunch has come true. I've gone through some more updates to include single parents and the pride flag to symbolize the inclusivity of the LGBTQ community. There's also a weightlifting woman expression which reiterates my gender equality principles. So, to all those haters out there, the caption is "I'm back with a bang! "

And there's another bonus good news. Facebook has redesigned its 'like' button to include 5 reactions namely love?, haha?, wow?, angry??and sad?. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#11: 2017 - Dear Smiley, I think this one is the jewel in the crown. John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium to include a mosquito emoji to represent the spread of diseases like Malaria and Zika. Isn't that cool?! People from different linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds can easily understand mosquito borne diseases if they see this symbol.

Yet another shining moment was when iPhone X’s Face Tracking technology gave me a new look - revamping me into 'animoji' to animate an emoji using a person’s facial gestures. You know what that means? My expressions are no longer generic. They can be customized to be specific, to match the sender's personality and mood. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#12: 2018 - Dear Smiley, I'm not only plentiful and powerful, I'm also colorful. Yes, you read it right. I now include different hair colors like black, red and grey.

And I must say that the inclusion of people on wheelchair is the best update that has happened to me. ~Cheers, Emoji

Diary Entry#13: 2020 - Dear Smiley, Facebook has added a caring expression of mine to the reaction button. Milestone! Milestone! ~Cheers, Emoji

PS: The Present and the Future

Nobody can have such a good life like me. Apple and Android have streamlined my usage and appearance across platforms and devices. There are numerous apps like Facebook, messenger, LinkedIn, Skype, MS outlook, MS teams, FaceTime, Webex, WhatsApp, etc., which support me and my umpteen expressions and all these cross platform emoji conversations register the same on all platforms and devices.

I'm no longer a mere symbol or a picture. My expressions are a serious business. The Unicode Consortium has an Emoji Subcommittee which reviews the new emoji proposals (new expressions) from people across the world. It takes nearly two years for a proposal to be accepted and to see a new expression of mine (new emoji) on your keyboards. I'm a complex and robust digital language, perhaps the first universal digital language.

The secret of my success is that I constantly evolve, every minute and every second. I'm open minded and I'm always willing to include new expressions and assume newer forms. Geography, culture, language, education, money - I've no such barriers and differences. This is why I'm called the lingua franca of the digital era. I deserve this name and fame, isn't it?

Fun fact:?17th July is my special day. You can call it my birthday or world emoji day. Do you know why this particular day has been chosen? It's because the calendar emoji shows this date only.??This was the date when i-cal, the calendar app (in MacOS/iOS) was premiered in 2002 (it was later launched on September 10, 2002). World emoji day came into vogue in 2014.